Arrogance and Anxiety
by Ladycoat
Summary: Hight school au:Allen knows there are only two types of people in this world: people who want him and people who want to be him. Yuri is plagued with social anxiety, which isn't made any better by moving to a new high school with overly- enthusiastic new friends. What will happen when these two unlikely friends bond? YurixIroha, Slight AllenxRod and SanjayXRio/Rachel
1. Fifty shades of garish Yellow

Allen had never truly appreciated the beauty of physics. His best friend, Rod, had spent hours upon hours trying to tutor Allen in the subject- all to no avail. Allen had resigned himself to the fact he was going to fail the subject and had just given up. He was going to be a hairdresser anyway; what did a hairdresser want with physics?

Rod was painfully different to Allen in more ways than just his passion for physics: Allen was tall, Rod was short. Allen's hair was cheek length, sleek and red, Rod's was short and ginger. When not wearing his school uniform, Allen dressed in a sharp navy blue blazer and suit, Rod opting for casual jeans, a t-shirt and a garish orange puffer jacket.

Allen despised his best friend's unruliness. Allen saw the potential in Rod's electric blue eyes and orange hair, _if only he'd do something with himself_. Maybe if he did though- Allen would have competition

The thought made the redhead chuckle, Allen would never have competition.

Allen was dripping with self-confidence, a jealous person may call arrogance. In Allen's mind, there were only two types of people in the world; People who wanted him and people who wanted to _be_ him.

'What did you get for question 2?' Rod asked from the seat next to Allen

'Pathogen' Allen said, knowing that he had answered a physics question with a biological term and not caring one bit.

'Allen!' Rod groaned 'this is physics not biology, haven't you learned anything from my tutoring?'

'Nope' Allen replied, emphasising the 'P' sound to emphasise his boredom

Rod just shook his head and turned back to his textbook

'Pssssst' Allen heard from his left

He turned his head and was met with the sight of his other best friend Sanjay sliding his own paper over to Allen so he could copy his answers

Sanjay was a real ladies man; he didn't know it though, which was good for Allen- it meant he could have the ladies all to himself.

The most striking think about Sanjay was his white- almost blue toned hair. It was long as well, down to his elbows in fact. Allen would have loved to get his hands on that hair – quite frankly; it was beautiful.

Sanjay's white hair and eyebrows were a stark contrast to his dark skin, Sanjay's skin was smooth despite never moisturising a day in his life. Allen was incredibly jealous of this.

The thing Allen loved the most about Sanjay however- was his smile. It was so carefree and lazy. Allen was not surprised that the students at Echo high school were intrigued by the boy.

Allen smirked at Sanjay and hurriedly copied down his answers. Yes it was dishonest, but it was worth it for Rod's reaction.

The bell that signified the end of class and the beginning of lunch rang. Rod and Sanjay managed to gently close their textbooks in the same amount of time it took Allen to slam his textbook shut and swagger out of the classroom door. He stared in disbelief at how slow his friends were a packing away.

_Oh _

Allen thought to himself

_Maybe I just really hate physics_

Allen strode over to his regular table in the cafeteria, knowing his group of friends would arrive momentarily.

The first to arrive was Felicity. Felicity was a polite blonde girl who excelled in cookery. She usually spent all of her lunchtime staring longingly at the schools kitchen, probably yearning to try out the high-tech ovens and rolling pins.

The next to arrive was Rod, who was talking to Sanjay about the how he had toilet trained his dog. Unsurprisingly, Sanjay was looking very uncomfortable.

Next was Neil, followed by Tina.

Neil bared a strong resemblance to Rod; the only difference was that Neil seemed to have a permanent scowl attached to his face. Neil was blunt and rude in a way that made people who were attracted to boys go weak at the knees.

Tina was similar to Rod personality wise and had a very similar taste in garish-orange/yellow.

The main difference between Tina and Rod?

Tina was nosy, a gossip. She liked to call herself 'inquisitive' but, no matter what way she liked to dress it up, she was nosy. She was loyal though, she'd never sell her friends out for juicy gossip, well, Allen hoped she'd never sell her friends out for gossip. Allen had done some spectacularly scandalous things that he didn't particularly want the rest of his classmates to know about.

'Allen! Don't you agree that dragons are _totally _better than dinosaurs?' Tina asked, though it sounded more like a command

'No way!' Rod shouted back 'Dinosaurs are so much better than dragons'

'Uh excuse me, FLAME BREATH' Tina shouted

'Yeah but-'Rod began

'FLAME. BREATH' Tina shouted, a little more forcefully this time, trying to do an impression of flames coming out of her mouth by stretching out her fingers in front of her mouth. It wasn't very effective.

Next to Tina, Felicity was partaking in her daily practice of trying to bargain Neil out of the cookie that came with his school lunch.

'You gonna eat that?' Felicity asked Neil, pointing at today's cookie.

Every day since they'd all been sitting together at lunch, Felicity asked Neil if he was going to eat his cookie.

And every day Neil always gave her the cookie.

Yet she still felt like she had to ask.

Surprisingly enough, Neil handed the cookie to her and placed a pair of headphones over his fluffy blonde hair as he always did, every single day. Allen couldn't say exactly what song he was listening to, but he could hear the distinctive sound of heavy metal music so he didn't bother asking.

Sitting the other side of Felicity, was Sanjay, who was also partaking in a daily practice of his own- gazing at Rachel, a girl he sat next to in English, and then Turing his head away and refusing to acknowledge her existence when she started gazing at him.

And finally, next to Sanjay, was Allen. Allen had spent the whole of lunchtime dreaming about hair; styling, cutting, colouring, and washing. His eyes drifted towards a girl a few tables away with dark brunette roots sprouting out of her bleached blonde hair. Allen's hand unconsciously went to his own head in case his natural blonde was visible through the rest of his dyed red hair. Allen was sometimes made fun of for taking an interest in what other's deemed 'feminine' activities. Whenever this happened, Allen just reminded himself that these people were probably just jealous that they had confined themselves to boring gender roles.

While Allen was thinking about how best to dismantle the patriarchy, he didn't notice Tina stand up. This was why he almost jumped out of his skin when she shouted:

'YURI! YURI! YURI! YURI! OVER HERE!' Waving her hands at goddess knows who.

A small girl, most likely whoever Yuri was, walked over to the table. She was blushing furiously.

'Guys! This is Yuri' Tina exclaimed

'We guessed' Sanjay said teasingly, he smiled at the blushing girl

'Yuri' Tina began 'This is Rod, Allen, Sanjay , Felicity and Allen'

When they were introduced, each greeted her politely.

Everyone apart from Neil and Allen that is. Neil nodded at her in his usual 'I'm-this-school's-stereotypical-badboy-and-i-don't-want-to-ruin-my-badboy-image-by-being-polite-to-you' way.

Allen winked at her, which caused the girls' face to go as red at his hair.

Tina focused her attention back to the blushing Yuri

'Sit down' Tina commanded

Yuri timidly took a seat next to Tina

Yuri was nothing like the rest of the girls at the school, in the way that none of the rest of the girls really drew Allen's attention. Sure, there were pretty girls, like Rachel or Felicity. But none really captured his attention enough to see them as more than a friend.

Yuri had shoulder length pink toned hair

_Dyed_ Allen thought

She wore glasses like Allen, too. And as much as he hated to admit it- the way her cheeks seemed to be permanently coloured pink with a blush, was kind of cute

'So you're new here?' Sanjay asked, in an attempt to ease some of the girl's nerves

'Nah, what gave you that idea?' Rod replied, sarcastically

Sanjay just smiled at him and urged Yuri to talk

'Uh' Yuri began 'Uh- yeah' She stammered

'Where did you move from?' Felicity asked, mouth full of cookie

'Konohana academy' Yuri said, nervously

'Never heard of it' Tina informed

This did nothing to ease Yuri's nerves.

'Do you know Reina?' Felicity asked, mouth still full

'Y-yeah…..' Yuri answered, uncomfortably

'And Kana?'

'Y-yes'

'And Hiro?'

'Um yes'

'And Nor-'

'That's enough, Felicity. The poor girl is nervous, give her a break' Sanjay said, flashing another reassuring smile at Yuri

Yuri smiled back at Sanjay before turning her head towards the lunch line.

'Do you have lunch money, Yuri?' Rod asked

'No' she replied quietly 'I was supposed to bring lunch from home but I forgot it'

'I would offer you Neil's cookie but I've just eaten it' Felicity offered

Tina broke off half of her sandwich and presented it to Yuri

'Oh- I couldn't possibly!' Yuri protested

'Listen, girl, you're one of us now' Tina declared

'_One of us?_' Yuri questioned, confusedly

'The cool kids!' Rod declared, proudly

'Hah, yeah. If your definition of cool is garish yellow tones, stoic bad boy of the year, a brownie snatcher and Sanjay and myself' Allen chuckled

'Hey, why didn't you say anything about you and Sanjay?' Tina accused

'Because, my dear Tina, me and Sanjay are a_ctually_ cool'

This earned a snort from Neil.

'So how about it Yuri, want to be part of the cool crew?' Sanjay asked, smirking

'Uh-' Yuri began

'Great!' Rod said, cutting her off.

_This was going to be an interesting year _Allen thought to himself.

* * *

**Authors note: Whooooooo chapter one! If there are any mistakes, feel free to let me know. I got approximately 2 hours of sleep last night, so this probably wont be perfect.  
And as always, you're 100% welcome to review and favourite ;)**

**Thanks for reading! :)**


	2. Party Pooper

Felicity had come into school the next week with the news that she was throwing a party, well, whatever Felicity considered a party. Felicity's definition of 'party' was the group of friends (usually minus Neil who was 'too cool' for gatherings) going to Felicity's house and watching movies on the TV.

Allen had already decided that Yuri was going to be his date, which was why he couldn't understand why she tried to run off whenever he mentioned it. Fair enough, if somebody says 'Sorry, I need to use the bathroom', let them go. But when somebody 'needs the toilet' whenever you happen to bring up a certain topic, the fact that something suspicious may be going on has to be considered.

At lunch time, Allen was the first to the regular table, like he always was. The rest of the group followed soon after.

_Like moths to a perfectly-dressed flame _

'Where's Yuri' Rod asked, inspecting his macaroni cheese that came with today's school lunch

'Allen scared her away' Felicity replied, through mouthfuls of cookie

Allen just rolled his eyes, like he usually did whenever anything came out of Felicity's mouth.

'Hah, Maybe you're not her type' Tina teased

What? How could Allen not be anybody's type? Allen knew deep down that even Tina probably had a crush on him

'Hey, speak of the devil' Rod said, as Yuri walked over to the table

Yuri had new spent a week at Echo high school, during that week; she had become a lot more comfortable around her new friends

'Where were you?' Tina questioned

'Ah, sorry' The pink haired girl began, scratching the back of her head 'I was finishing some textiles work with Iroha'

The whole group went silent and stared at her like she had grown an extra head; Allen thought he even saw Neil turn down the volume of his music playlist for today, which consisted of a song by a guy doing lot of shouting about his ex-wife

'What…?' Yuri asked, self consciously

'You were with Iroha?' Sanjay questioned

'Um- yes?' Yuri answered, as though she was unsure of her answer

'Which Iroha?' Sanjay repeated, wide eyed

'Uh. I don't know her last name' Yuri fixed her glasses on her nose, a nervous habit 'A-approximately how many Iroha's go to-'

'You must be something special if Iroha wants to talk to you' Felicity interrupted

'Iroha is like female Neil, only she really is cool; Neil just thinks he is' Tina said, this earned her a glare from Neil 'She doesn't usually talk to people'

'Well I suppose Yuri does give off that 'scared puppy' vibe, maybe Iroha felt sorry for her' Rod offered

Yuri wasn't sure whether she felt grateful to have a reason for the apparently 'cool' Iroha extending the hand of friendship to her, or offended at being labelled a 'scared puppy'

'Enough about that! I want to talk about my party' Felicity whined

'I need to go to….uh' Yuri began, she'd been using the bathroom excuse too much 'Talk to somebody'

'Who?' Allen asked, raising an eyebrow

'Uh- Ms. Hana!' She said, hastily 'I need to talk to Ms. Hana about my textiles project!'

'Yuri, stop' Allen commanded

A violent red blush coloured the girl's cheeks 'Y-yes?'

'Will you be my da-'

'Hey, Rachel!' Sanjay shouted, enthusiastically, interrupting Allen

Allen glared at Sanjay and turned back to Yuri

'Yuri' He began 'will you be my dat-'

'Ohmygosh! She's coming over here' Sanjay panicked 'what should I do?!'

'SANJAY, SHUT UP' Allen shrieked 'I'm trying to ask Yuri to be my date to Felicity's party!'

'Ooooooooh' Tina and Rod both said at once

'So, Yuri- Yuri? Wha- where did she go?' Allen asked, bewildered

Nobody was there to answer him; instead, all eyes were on Sanjay as he asked Rachel to be his date to the party

_This was supposed to be my moment _Allen thought, sighing, getting up to look for Yuri

Allen didn't find Yuri, which was something he was very miffed about

'What am I doing wrong_?' _He thought out loud in English

'Allen' Rod sighed 'She just doesn't like you- no! I didn't mean it like that. She just doesn't like you in uh, _that _way'

Allen sighed, irritated 'Well why not?' Allen demanded

'Not everybody has a crush on you, Allen' Neil scolded

'Nonsense!' Allen argued

Rod and Neil both groaned

'Maybe I should ask Iroha' Allen suggested

'What?!' Rod squaked 'No way, man. She'll eat you alive'

'She can't be that scary' Allen said, brushing Rod's warning off

'She's not' Neil offered 'What? We used to date' he trailed off, shyly.

Both boys gawked at Neil

'When were you going to tell us about this?!' Allen squealed

'Shut up. People are looking at us'

'Well of course they are, I'm over here' Allen said, smirking

This caused Rod and Neil to groan again

* * *

**So I realise this has taken about five million years for me to upload, I've had a lot of boring problems with my internet and a lot of boring stuff the requires my attention at the moment; I won't bore you with details.**

**Thanks for reading, reviews are always welcome!**


	3. Chapter 3

'So I asked her to be my date and she said yes! Can you believe it?' Sanjay exclaimed, for the seventh time that evening. Sanjay exchanged an excited glance with Rachel.

Sanjay and Rachel, accompanied by Allen, Rod, Felicity, Tina and Yuri were sitting on Felicity's couch smiling excitedly at each other

'Yes, Sanjay, we all know how it happened' Allen groaned. He realised that his only way of escape was to grab a drink from the kitchen 'I'm going to get a glass of water, anyone want anything?'

'Could I have a-' Rod began

'Whoops, too late!' Allen declared, ducking into the kitchen

He reached up into Felicity's pristine kitchen cupboards and pulled a glass out of one of them

A throat cleared behind him and he jumped in shock, almost dropping the glass. He turned around, ready to shout at whoever had disturbed him to scold them but stopped when he saw it was Yuri

'Oh, it's only you' He said

'Could you pass me a glass from the cupboard?' Yuri asked, timidly

Allen grinned 'Too short to reach the top shelf?' He teased

Yuri's face reddened. She stomped over to the cupboard and reached up, her hand missed the shelf where the glasses were kept by mere inches.

Yuri's face reddened more when she felt Allen's chest sliding up her back as he reached behind her to retrieve a glass.

Yuri turned around and found herself face-to-neck with Allen, who put his hands on the counter behind her; trapping her.

'Well, isn't this cosy?' he purred

Yuri inhaled sharply 'Allen, no' She said, defiantly

Allen moved his hands from the counter and pulled his hair, frustrated.

'What's wrong with me?!' He demanded 'Why do you find me undesirable?'

To say Yuri looked uncomfortable would have been an understatement

'Is it the hair? Because I'm not changing that for anybody!' He challenged

Yuri tried to speak again 'A-Allen'

'The impeccable fashion sense, does it intimidate you?'

'Allen please'

'Are you scared of looking ugly next to me?'

'For goodness-' Yuri roared

'Does my beauty intimidate you?'

'SHUT UP!' she roared

Allen's eyes widened. He didn't even know that Yuri was capable of making such a loud sound

Yuri continued to shout

'The reason I'm not interested in you, you little egotistical, self-absorbed, obnoxious buttfarm; is because…' Yuri exhaled slowly, a little calmer, she said 'It's because I'm lesbian, Allen'

Allen froze. After a few seconds, he regained energy

'Did you call me a _buttfarm_?' He asked, scrunching his eyebrows

Yuri stared at him blankly 'Are you joking right now? Are you actually joking?' She said, exasperated 'I come out to you and you critique my vocabulary?!'

'Well it's a-uh, colourful vocabulary' Allen offered, uncomfortably

'Um-yeah' Yuri said, weakly, still registering her sudden outburst at Allen

'So, that's why you're not interested?' Allen asked, mainly to himself

Yuri nodded

To her surprise Allen said 'Well, I'm sorry for making you feel uncomfortable'

Yuri nodded once again

Allen attempted to lighten the mood 'If I didn't know any better- I'd say that the reason you spend so much time with Iroha is because you have a crush on her. Ha ha' Allen joked

Yuri's jaw dropped

Allen's jaw dropped

'Oh my goodness, no' He said, disbelievingly 'Oh wow, good luck with that' He chuckled

Yuri grew defensive again

'Huh- why?'

'Well she used to date Neil' Allen said

'So?'

'Well, duh, she's into guys' Allen said, like it was obvious

Yuri raised an eyebrow at him 'There is such thing as being bisexual, Allen'

Allen contemplated this 'Oh yeah. Sorry'

'Hey, Allen' Yuri began 'You- you won't tell anyone will you?' She requested

'Not if you don't want me to. Nobody will care though' He said, shrugging

Yuri let out a sigh of relief 'Thanks. And it's not that I think people will care; it's just a big thing, you know?'

Allen nodded 'I get it'

'Surely they all heard our shouting though' Yuri said, worriedly

Allen laughed aloud at this 'This kitchen has really thick walls. Felicity's in here making all sorts of noise when she tries to cook'

Yuri nodded, still not convinced. When she looked back at Allen; he had a mischievous glint in his eye that Yuri really didn't like the look of

'I'm going to get you and Iroha together!' He exclaimed

'H-have you ever spoken to her' Yuri asked, flustered

'Nope, I'm going to do it though, to repay you for being a total _buttfarm_ to you'

'Please don't' She requested 'And just for future reference, don't assume I have crushes on all my female friends'

Allen looked bewildered

'But- but I have crushes on all my female friends' He said, puzzled 'doesn't it work the other way around?' He wondered

Yuri once again raised an eyebrow

Water in hand, the two re-entered the sitting room. Yuri awkwardly walking while Allen confidently strolled, a plan forming in his mind

'What took you so long?' Felicity demanded, her face stuffed with a cupcake

'We encountered a large bear in the kitchen' Allen replied, sarcastically

Felicity shot up 'Oh no!' She screeched 'not again!'

* * *

**End of chapter three. Whoop, whoop!**

**If anything to do with this chapter offends anybody please let me know. I'm Pansexual myself so I've had a few coming out experiences.**

**I feel like this might be a little shorter than the previous two chapters, sorry if it is!**


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